England/Wales/Ireland Advice Please

With places this far apart, you can't sensibility cover 3 countries and 6 places in 12 days. I suggest that you drop the Lake District and Dublin from your itinerary, which will still leave a very rushed 12 days. Or add another week to your holiday unless you want to spend the whole time in transit. It takes longer to get around than the distances initially suggest.

Go to Bath by train and hire a car once you are leaving there, as you don't want one in Bath. Drive around the Cotswolds and on to Wales. Either drop the car in Wales and get the train back to London or drop the car at Heathrow or wherever you are departing from.

Sorry to be the one to burst your bubble, but everyone else will tell you the same thing. 3 countries and 5 locations in 12 days? You will spend much of your time and energy just getting from one place to another. When tour groups do this type of thing, someone else is responsible for the travel arrangements and you just get on the bus and can maybe even sleep. With Dublin being the farthest away, you should consider dropping it. And remember if you fly, you've got to travel to a city that has an airport.
Fewer locations= more time to enjoy each place!

We have our airline tickets purchased so Dublin is on the itinerary. The Lake District is an outlier- we'd love to go but Im not giving up Cardigan this trip. Im not too worried about the itinerary based on what we are doing. (though I do understand its a lot of miles to cover).
We can cross to Ireland several places but Cardigan makes the most sense. Suggestions on travel from Rosslare to Dublin? Car or train? Ive not found a good resource for trains in Ireland- is that for obvious reasons?

irishrail.ie

Leslie,
We flew in and out of Dublin in July for a trip to England and Ireland, as it was about half the price of flying in and out of Heathrow. (There were a lot of folks on our flight who were flying from the U.S. through Dublin to get to London.) We looked at a couple of different options to travel from Dublin to England (we traveled to and from Birmingham) and back to Dublin. Flying a short hop flight ended up being very reasonable and much cheaper and faster than using the train/ferry, which was our other option. We used man in seat 61 (seat61.com) as a starting point to research rail and ferry options. For our flight, we ended up booking through Aer Lingus and had a good experience and were able to carry on our luggage with no additional restrictions. Aer Lingus also had reasonably short lines to check in. Just a word of warning about both Ryan Air and Monarch Air - the check in lines at the airports were SO long. You would need to allow yourself a lot of extra time if you are flying them - probably a couple of hours to be on the safe side. I'm not sure about the price differences between airlines, but our Aer Lingus fares were very reasonable, perhaps because of the budget airlines competition.

If you’re spending several days in London and going to Bath and the Cotswolds, then Cardigan, Wales for a day or two, I’d suggest skipping the Lake District to have more time in and around Dublin.

There is a great deal to see and do in Dublin, plus a number of day trips (either rental car or tour bus) you can take that offer a great deal of variety. The Lake District has many charms, but with only 12 days, it may not be that much different from the Costwolds/Wales to justify the long drive for only a day (or perhaps 2).

If you open the link below and scroll down the page you'll see info on the Fishguard ferry and onward travel in Ireland

http://www.seat61.com/Ireland.htm

There's a Hertz in Fishguard

I would forget Dublin. Even this is very tight....
Fly in to Manchester. Pick up car rental. Drive to Lake District (3 nights)
To Cardigan, Wales (2 nights)
To Cotswolds (2 nights)
To Bath (2 nights)
Drop off hire car in Bath.
Train to London (3 nights)
Fly out of London

Just noted your update re flights in and out of Dublin.

Fly in to Dublin
Ferry to Holyhead (1 night)
Pick up car rental in Holyhead
Drive to Cardigan, Wales (2 nights)
Drive to Cotswolds (2 nights)
Drive to Bath (2 nights)
Drop off hire car in Bath
Train to London (3 nights)
Fly to Dublin (2 nights)
Fly out of Dublin

I take it that you are flying into Heathrow and out from Dublin and that this is fixed? Forget the Lake District.

Should that be so, after London - train to Bath for 1 night. If you want to see a Cotswold style village without driving to the main ‘cluster’ = Bourton-on-the-Water, Broadway etc., then Castle Combe is the one to head for as it is about a 35 minute drive from Bath. That would put you well placed for the M4 and heading west into south Wales. (I suggest that you read past posts in the Wales forum).

The A40 route across south Wales is more scenic than the M4 but the M4 is a divided expressway whilst the A40 is just an ordinary main road and therefore slower.

As a guide to driving, Bath to Cardiff by the fastest route takes just over 1 hour - though I would suggest a detour to see Tintern Abbey (ruin). Cardiff to Cardigan takes 2 hours - assuming no delays. You are unlikely to be able to pick up/drop off hire cars in Cardigan. (The beach at Mwnt - just NW of Cardigan is worth a visit but the approach road is VERY narrow - make sure you can drive backwards in case you see t someone coming the other way). Fishguard is the nearest ferry port for Ireland and the ferry goes to Rosslare. However, I would not cross on this ferry but would spend 2 or 3 days travelling up the west side of Wales to end up in Holyhead - where I would turn in the hire car and take the ferry to Dublin (Stena Line or Irish Ferries).

www.visitwales.co.uk

You can skip the Lake District ( buses of tourists) and even the Cotswolds (special places, but can be expensive) and spend most of your time in Wales where you have real Castles and plenty of quaintness available. Buy a castle pass in Wales. Check the National Trust UK site online to get an idea of what is available to view in England. Bath is worth seeing. Be careful of where you stay in Dublin. Some of the Hotels are catering to Hen and Stag parties, with whole groups coming from the UK to have a wild and crazy time! Smaller places are probably better.

Hertz was pretty good. Bath has some good cabbies that can drive you to their location for very cheap. Hehe....Wales in 2 days is very ambitious. Lake district to wales is not long if you plan on driving from say--Llandudno to Ambleside. I did that drive in May, it took around 2.5 hours, we left early(ish) in the day, around 8am, didn't encounter any traffic. Now if you are planning on driving from S.Wales I think its not feasible. Roads are slow in some parts of the lakes since its narrow and they only have one lane highways. The Lakes are gorgeous and not a place to be missed...personally I thought it was much nicer than Wales. I think you can Ferry to Ireland from Bangor(?) not sure. Flying would be far faster.